Bun run: Copenhageners run to the best cakes in town

In Denmark, most seasons have a bread or cake associated with them, but no other season's cakes have as much hype around them as those baked to mark the carnival tradition Fastelavn. This year, Copenhageners are taking tastings to the extreme—literally running to the best buns in town. The excitement surrounding its traditional cake, the cream- and jam-filled fastelavnsboller—meaning Fastelavn bun—has only grown in recent years. It's no longer just available on Fastelavn Sunday, but in bakery windows from early January. Bakers across Copenhagen and Denmark's other large cities offer the buns, some creating the most lavish pastries possible. Tipster, a Danish food and beverage company, organized what’s claimed to be the world’s first "Fastelavn Bun Run." “We were doing a selection of ten bakeries that we really, really like and that are doing ten Fastelavns buns that we really think that everybody should try. By coincidence, we did the route between the different bakeries, and the route was exactly 21.1 km, which is the exact distance of a half marathon,” explains Tipster founder Simon Evers. “It was basically just written in the sky that this has to go into a half marathon." It’s a 21.1-kilometer half marathon visiting ten of the city’s top bakeries and sampling a fastelavnsboller at each. In just one day, 3,723 people signed up, although only 100 lucky applicants were allowed to take part. Evers says almost 8,000 people applied in all. The half marathon starts at Flere Fugle, a bakery in Copenhagen’s Northwest district. "This is the best chance that you can get visiting some of the best bakeries in the world and running with 100 people who are just super psyched about it,” he smiles. “We taste everything from like an old school fastelavns bun to a semlor, which is basically what they do in Sweden. And then we have a lot of modern interpretations of the fastelavns bun as well." This article was provided by The Associated Press.